In recent months and years, the mule owners on Kedarnath route or working as porters in various hill cities of Uttarakhand have become an easy target for those who habitually criticize Muslims for every wrong taking place in any area.

Why have these porters become an easy target for such attacks? 

Because, people who love to hate Muslims have painted a fake picture that all these porters with mules are Muslims.

The picture is fake because the reality is very different. The reality is : A section of these porters are Muslims. The Hindus from remote villages of Uttarkhashi, Chamoli, Rudraprayag etc. also work as porters and many of them own mules (a type of horse created to carry goods).

I'm not saying Muslims cannot be criminals. Criminals can be founds in any religion or community, including Hindus, Sikhs, Christians etc.

What I'm saying is this: A person doesn't become a criminal simply because he/she belongs to a certain religion.

You may ask why this subject is being raised today?

For one simple reason.

People who love to hate Muslims are the same who love to hate every other religion, caste, ethnicity except their own. So if you allow them space then they can even convince you why "YOU", "the person you your speaking to" and "the person you are being preached about" are the real diamonds; and the rest of the World is just dirt.

So the reason for writing about it today is to make everyone careful of such people, who are nothing but the dealers of hate.

The best way to remain careful of these people is to question them; and not take any of their hate speech at its face value. Instead, ask them counter questions.

To conclude, let I share with you the kind of hate such hate dealers can put in our minds.

When pilgrims got stranded during the 2013 Kedarnath Uttarakhand floods, many community kitchens were set up by the NGOs, the Government and ordinary good human beings.

Good human beings online and offline were encouraging such efforts, and for obvious reasons.

But a section of people were busy doing something else that too the very next day of the massive floods. They were enthusiastically sharing online and offline a couple of stories ---

1) How Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi managed to air life all the pilgrims from Gujarat
2) Why Gujarat CM donated only Rupees 2 crore
3) (Much later) The quality of ration in Rs. 2500 rescue kit that landed from Gujarat

In their attempt to prove the above three, a photo of a poor man with a beard eating in one such community kitchens set up in Kedarnath's adjoining areas was actively being circulated online and debated offline (real world), as to how people from a certain community have even reached there (Kedarnath) to have a free lunch.

Ask yourself, how would any good person react to such a picture or reasoning?

Simple, he/she will say: Anyone stuck there would eat in such community kitchens.

But these people kept on with their propaganda and seemed determined to prove just one thing: What is he doing there?

And no one, including I, bothered to ask: Could he be a mule owner?

No one, including I, asked: If Indian Air Force couldn't airdrop relief material due to bad weather, then how had Modi managed to airlift all pilgrims from Gujarat?

Don't worry, if you or I didn't question them at that time. We can ask them questions now. They have not gone anywhere, they are still doing what they are good at. Lets not tolerate their fakery this time around.

.... Enough of their Fakery.

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